Gregory Edelstein - "Save Your People, Lord..." (November 10, 1996)
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| - | The third lesson is from | 0:11 |
| the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. | 0:13 | |
| Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. | 0:18 | |
| 10 bridesmaids took their lamps and went | 0:22 | |
| to meet the bridegroom. | 0:25 | |
| Five of them were foolish and five were wise. | 0:27 | |
| When the foolish took their lamps, | 0:31 | |
| they took no oil with them, but the wise | 0:33 | |
| took flasks of oil with their lamps. | 0:37 | |
| As the bridegroom was delayed, | 0:40 | |
| all of them became drowsy and slept. | 0:42 | |
| But at midnight there was a shout, | 0:46 | |
| "Look, here is the bridegroom! | 0:48 | |
| "Come out to meet him." | 0:50 | |
| Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. | 0:54 | |
| The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil. | 0:58 | |
| "For our lamps are going out." | 1:02 | |
| But the wise replied, "No, | 1:05 | |
| "there will not be enough for you and for us. | 1:08 | |
| "You had better go to the dealers | 1:12 | |
| "and buy some for yourselves." | 1:14 | |
| And while they went to buy it, | 1:18 | |
| the bridegroom came, and those who were ready, | 1:20 | |
| went with him into the wedding banquet. | 1:24 | |
| And the door was shut. | 1:28 | |
| Later the other bridesmaids came also saying, | 1:31 | |
| "Lord, Lord, open to us!" | 1:34 | |
| But he replied, | 1:38 | |
| "Truly I tell you, I do not know you." | 1:40 | |
| Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day | 1:45 | |
| nor the hour. | 1:50 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 1:52 | |
| - | Thanks be to God! | 1:55 |
| - | We usually begin, | 2:12 |
| a prayer (clears throat) or a sermon in our church | 2:14 | |
| with the words: In the name of the Father, | 2:19 | |
| the Son, and the Holy Spirit. | 2:23 | |
| I must congratulate you | 2:28 | |
| on this day, on a very special occasion. | 2:33 | |
| I don't think many of you have ever been congratulated on. | 2:38 | |
| 79 years ago, | 2:47 | |
| we started | 2:53 | |
| an experiment, | 2:55 | |
| which was called the Great October Socialists Revolution. | 2:57 | |
| And not only we, not only Russian people participated in it. | 3:03 | |
| People from all over the world, including America, | 3:09 | |
| came and helped us to stage that experiment. | 3:14 | |
| An American writer and a revolutionary | 3:21 | |
| wrote a book | 3:27 | |
| which he called "The 10 Days That Shook the World." | 3:28 | |
| Today is | 3:35 | |
| the fourth day | 3:37 | |
| after the seventh of November. | 3:40 | |
| It was I think 79 years ago. | 3:45 | |
| And I think the world is still shaking | 3:50 | |
| as a result of those 10 days. | 3:55 | |
| The | 4:00 | |
| spiritual | 4:03 | |
| and economic engineering | 4:05 | |
| has been proved false. | 4:10 | |
| And | 4:14 | |
| the teaching | 4:19 | |
| has gone to pieces. | 4:23 | |
| But we'll still suffer. | 4:26 | |
| If we have been liberated, | 4:31 | |
| so to say physically, | 4:34 | |
| our souls are still in Egypt. | 4:37 | |
| We are still the same slaves that we were | 4:42 | |
| during the last | 4:47 | |
| 75 years. | 4:50 | |
| For 75 years | 4:55 | |
| we were crying, | 4:58 | |
| "Save | 5:00 | |
| "your people, Lord. | 5:02 | |
| "And bless those who are yours." | 5:05 | |
| I don't think you will take me for a fundamentalist | 5:09 | |
| if I tell you that every word in the Bible | 5:12 | |
| is very significant. | 5:18 | |
| And it is | 5:21 | |
| especially significant if you think about the world's | 5:23 | |
| save and your people. | 5:26 | |
| Who is that people? | 5:30 | |
| We have been praying for our villages | 5:33 | |
| as I pray every day. | 5:37 | |
| But we were praying for our people | 5:40 | |
| and for our country. | 5:44 | |
| But now that I look at you, | 5:47 | |
| are you not the inheritance of Lord? | 5:48 | |
| Are you not his people? | 5:54 | |
| I think we were praying for you too. | 5:57 | |
| And I don't doubt that you prayed for us. | 6:02 | |
| I'm quite sure that if | 6:10 | |
| our communism, | 6:15 | |
| the communist system is in pieces, | 6:17 | |
| it's thanks to your prayer, | 6:22 | |
| to those who brought Bibles to my country. | 6:26 | |
| Thanks to those who remembered that if we want Christians | 6:32 | |
| and if one member suffers, all suffer. | 6:39 | |
| Many people in the West, | 6:45 | |
| many people in America | 6:47 | |
| suffered when we suffered. | 6:51 | |
| What did it mean to be a priest in Russia | 6:54 | |
| in the '20s or '30s | 6:57 | |
| or '40s even? | 7:00 | |
| It meant to be killed. | 7:03 | |
| There were only two ways. | 7:06 | |
| A very narrow choice. | 7:10 | |
| Be a traitor, be Judas, | 7:13 | |
| or you will be shot. | 7:17 | |
| Hundreds, thousands of priests | 7:21 | |
| were shot, | 7:26 | |
| were in exile, and still new and new generations | 7:28 | |
| rose to pray. | 7:35 | |
| When I was ordained, it was much easier. | 7:39 | |
| In a week, | 7:46 | |
| next Sunday, | 7:48 | |
| I shall celebrate the 70th anniversary | 7:50 | |
| of my ordination. | 7:55 | |
| At that time I say, | 8:00 | |
| it was, | 8:03 | |
| no I should say, much easier to be a priest in Russia | 8:05 | |
| than anywhere | 8:10 | |
| in the world. | 8:13 | |
| We usually say in Russia that it's not necessary | 8:16 | |
| to drink the whole sea or the whole ocean, | 8:19 | |
| if you want to know the taste of the sea water. | 8:24 | |
| A glass will quite do. | 8:29 | |
| So I'll give you an example. | 8:32 | |
| An ordinary priest in an ordinary Russian village. | 8:37 | |
| And I think, | 8:45 | |
| you will understand what it is | 8:48 | |
| to be a priest in Russia today. | 8:50 | |
| So I say I was ordained | 8:53 | |
| 17 years ago. | 8:56 | |
| And my Bishop told me, I say it was November, | 8:59 | |
| he said, "I'm sending you to a church, | 9:03 | |
| "which is destroyed, | 9:10 | |
| "where there has been no service | 9:11 | |
| "for 13 years. | 9:16 | |
| "Go and restore it, and that will be your charge." | 9:19 | |
| So I went there, | 9:25 | |
| and in three days we celebrated the first Eucharist. | 9:28 | |
| I don't think I must tell you that our winter | 9:34 | |
| is slightly different from what you call winter here. | 9:38 | |
| What you call winter will be a cold summer. | 9:47 | |
| (audience laughing) | 9:51 | |
| There was no door, no windows. | 9:58 | |
| Of course no heating when we celebrated the first Eucharist. | 10:03 | |
| I was not prepared; I took the brass cross | 10:09 | |
| and in a minute I didn't feel I'm holding it in my hand. | 10:14 | |
| During the service, the priest will kiss the challis | 10:20 | |
| several times, I did. | 10:25 | |
| And my lips stuck. | 10:29 | |
| (audience laughs) | 10:31 | |
| Yes, I'm willing to laugh with you today, | 10:34 | |
| but in that moment, | 10:37 | |
| my lips were bleeding. | 10:40 | |
| And, | 10:44 | |
| you will | 10:47 | |
| understand that our services are long. | 10:50 | |
| Sometimes they last two or three hours. | 10:52 | |
| People had, all of this, | 10:56 | |
| easier for the priest. | 11:00 | |
| He moves, he can do something. | 11:03 | |
| And people stand there | 11:07 | |
| and still they were so thankful to me that I came. | 11:11 | |
| When they came to the service, | 11:15 | |
| they brought something for me to eat. | 11:19 | |
| Maybe potatoes or carrots, cabbage, eggs, anything. | 11:21 | |
| But besides, they had always something for the church. | 11:27 | |
| And their gifts were a pair of bricks | 11:33 | |
| and a handful of nails, a hammer, | 11:36 | |
| a plastic bag of cement to repair the church. | 11:40 | |
| When there were 100 bricks, we repaired the steps. | 11:44 | |
| And we could go in next time | 11:49 | |
| when we had enough room, | 11:54 | |
| we erected something that we called the restroom. | 11:57 | |
| Maybe 50 meters from the church. | 12:01 | |
| 'Cause whenever old people come, they're not old physically. | 12:05 | |
| Well, there must be a restroom. | 12:08 | |
| And in a couple of days we blasted and painted the wall. | 12:12 | |
| And day after day we did something there. | 12:18 | |
| And that was my first lesson. | 12:23 | |
| There I understood how easy it is | 12:27 | |
| to be a priest in such a church. | 12:32 | |
| Which you built with your congregation. | 12:36 | |
| Which people usually treasure. | 12:41 | |
| When I was coming here, when I came here for the first time, | 12:45 | |
| I saw an announcement, a poll at the entrance | 12:48 | |
| which I liked maybe the best in this, | 12:52 | |
| well the Duke Chapel. | 12:57 | |
| It was | 12:59 | |
| three words: How to behave in a chapel. | 13:01 | |
| I'm sorry, it's not there. | 13:05 | |
| I wanted to copy it and read it to you. | 13:07 | |
| But many people who come here forget it. | 13:10 | |
| I saw many cigarette | 13:14 | |
| butts on the doorsteps. | 13:18 | |
| I tried to count them; I counted 28 or 29. | 13:21 | |
| It means that the people who did it | 13:26 | |
| do not respect | 13:29 | |
| this church. | 13:31 | |
| They come here | 13:35 | |
| not remembering that this is | 13:38 | |
| the house of God. | 13:40 | |
| Then I was moved to another | 13:46 | |
| diocese, another region. | 13:50 | |
| And it was practically the same. | 13:55 | |
| Different part of Russia, but again the same. | 13:58 | |
| Restoration, work, hard work with the people. | 14:00 | |
| And, | 14:06 | |
| it is still much more harder. | 14:09 | |
| It was maybe | 14:15 | |
| to resist the constant pressure | 14:17 | |
| of our state, of our state officials. | 14:20 | |
| Any kind of religious activity, what they called | 14:27 | |
| religious activity was named | 14:32 | |
| or listed as | 14:36 | |
| religious propaganda and was strictly forbidden. | 14:38 | |
| The official who was responsible for the state/church | 14:45 | |
| relations in our | 14:48 | |
| diocese or region | 14:51 | |
| called me once, then a second time, | 14:54 | |
| then a 10th time, and at last he got very angry and said, | 14:57 | |
| "You are too proud. | 15:03 | |
| "Your people come and take your blessing | 15:05 | |
| "and then they kiss your hand. | 15:08 | |
| "The day will come when you will stand here, | 15:11 | |
| "near my armchair, on your knees. | 15:14 | |
| "And it will be asking me to give you my hand | 15:18 | |
| "to be kissed." | 15:23 | |
| I'm very sorry to say I got very angry. | 15:27 | |
| Looked at him and said in a very low voice, | 15:32 | |
| "Don't you think that you will be carried | 15:36 | |
| "out of your apartment? | 15:40 | |
| "First your feet, | 15:41 | |
| "first in a coffin. | 15:44 | |
| "And your relatives will ask me to come and burry you." | 15:47 | |
| He turned pale. | 15:54 | |
| And didn't say a word. | 15:58 | |
| And within a year he died. | 16:02 | |
| And I'm very sorry to say | 16:05 | |
| that I had another lesson. | 16:07 | |
| It was, | 16:11 | |
| that a priest has no right to be angry, | 16:13 | |
| even when he speaks to his opponents. | 16:17 | |
| And I don't remember a single | 16:23 | |
| Eucharist where I did not pray for him. | 16:29 | |
| His name was Nicholas, and I dare you to pray for his soul. | 16:36 | |
| That was a good lesson for me, | 16:44 | |
| but still sometimes I do get very angry | 16:49 | |
| when I speak to our officials. | 16:52 | |
| What the officials couldn't do, what the state couldn't do, | 16:59 | |
| my bishop did. | 17:03 | |
| For this so called religious activity, I was suspended. | 17:05 | |
| I organized a kind of summit camp, | 17:12 | |
| and 41 people came from different parts of our country, | 17:17 | |
| most of them from Moscow. | 17:21 | |
| We worked together, we prayed together. | 17:23 | |
| We went mushrooming. | 17:26 | |
| If children asked me questions, I was ready to answer. | 17:28 | |
| We read Gospel together, that means religious propaganda. | 17:32 | |
| And it's only fair that your Bishop punishes you for it. | 17:37 | |
| So I was | 17:45 | |
| unemployed for a year and a half, | 17:48 | |
| and they told me very definitely | 17:53 | |
| that I will never be a priest again. | 17:56 | |
| Well, | 18:01 | |
| I told them that | 18:02 | |
| such questions | 18:06 | |
| in the end are decided by our Lord. | 18:09 | |
| It's for him to decide who I am and who I will be. | 18:13 | |
| And in summer of 1988, | 18:18 | |
| President Reagan came | 18:23 | |
| to Russia for the first time. | 18:25 | |
| I think you remember that occasion. | 18:27 | |
| And I was invited to the, | 18:30 | |
| so called Spaso House, the house where | 18:33 | |
| the Ambassador of the United States lives in Moscow. | 18:37 | |
| There were three groups of people: | 18:45 | |
| The so called Refuse-niks, the Jews, | 18:48 | |
| who couldn't leave for Israel, one group; | 18:50 | |
| the former political prisoners, second; | 18:53 | |
| and a few | 18:59 | |
| so called religious dissidents. | 19:01 | |
| Believe me, I'm not one of them, I'm not a dissident. | 19:04 | |
| I'm just a country priest. | 19:08 | |
| So, | 19:11 | |
| I was the only one. | 19:13 | |
| There were 40 people there, but I was the only one | 19:15 | |
| in my Cossack. | 19:18 | |
| So, | 19:21 | |
| there were many TV companies | 19:23 | |
| and they were all concentrated on the Cossack. | 19:25 | |
| It was something unusual at that time. | 19:29 | |
| On the next day I was abused | 19:32 | |
| while one of our central newspapers. | 19:35 | |
| They called me fallen priest and something else. | 19:40 | |
| And in two or three days after it, | 19:43 | |
| I already received a parish | 19:49 | |
| in my diocese. | 19:53 | |
| So I can say that I received my second ordination | 19:55 | |
| from President Reagan. | 20:00 | |
| (audience laughs) | 20:01 | |
| From it I think, well during these 18 months, | 20:09 | |
| I learned one more lesson: | 20:15 | |
| And it is, | 20:20 | |
| our worst enemy today | 20:22 | |
| I'll not hesitate to word it like that | 20:26 | |
| is the ruling group | 20:31 | |
| of our church. | 20:35 | |
| Those who are at the top | 20:39 | |
| including | 20:42 | |
| most of our Bishops. | 20:44 | |
| They were appointed by the KGB. | 20:48 | |
| They were appointed by the Central Committee | 20:52 | |
| of the Communist Party. | 20:57 | |
| They are still there. | 20:59 | |
| They were deceiving you for many and many years. | 21:02 | |
| They were spying here; they came here as spies, | 21:09 | |
| or KGB secret agents. | 21:13 | |
| And they are still there. | 21:16 | |
| They are still our Bishops. | 21:19 | |
| And they are still deceiving you. | 21:23 | |
| I say that many times to my Bishop. | 21:28 | |
| I never hesitate to write so. | 21:31 | |
| I think | 21:37 | |
| that if some day | 21:39 | |
| you come to my town, to the city of Kostroma, | 21:41 | |
| I'll be glad to discuss | 21:45 | |
| this problem with you | 21:48 | |
| and our Bishop if we sit together, | 21:51 | |
| and if you think this question important. | 21:55 | |
| If you think about Iran or Afghanistan today, | 21:59 | |
| I don't think you will understand much about these countries | 22:04 | |
| if you don't take into consideration | 22:09 | |
| the religion. | 22:14 | |
| If you don't take into consideration Islam. | 22:18 | |
| Believe me, you will understand nothing about Russia | 22:23 | |
| if you don't know our religion. | 22:28 | |
| If you don't know what orthodoxy is. | 22:31 | |
| I went to your library yesterday | 22:36 | |
| and the librarian showed me what they have | 22:41 | |
| on the history of our church today. | 22:45 | |
| I'm very sorry to say that there's practically nothing. | 22:48 | |
| During the last 10 years | 22:54 | |
| you were so sure | 22:58 | |
| that we enjoyed full freedom of religion, | 23:00 | |
| that you stopped praying for us. | 23:03 | |
| And your scientists stopped any scientific investigation. | 23:08 | |
| I'm very sorry to say it, | 23:16 | |
| but I'm afraid it is so. | 23:19 | |
| Now, after the ordination, the second one, | 23:23 | |
| I was in I say the | 23:30 | |
| region of Kostroma. | 23:35 | |
| And four years ago I was here in the United States. | 23:38 | |
| I was invited to | 23:41 | |
| church in Washington. | 23:44 | |
| The board talked to me. | 23:48 | |
| They were very friendly and said they wanted | 23:52 | |
| to give money to restore Russian Orthodox churches. | 23:55 | |
| I was glad to hear it. | 24:01 | |
| When I got back, I went to my Bishop | 24:03 | |
| and asked him to send me to a | 24:06 | |
| church that needed restoration. | 24:10 | |
| He said, "Well, I have 30, choose any." | 24:13 | |
| I chose one, the one where I am today, and went there. | 24:17 | |
| So imagine | 24:22 | |
| yourself coming to the village of Karobanova, | 24:24 | |
| a small village with 18 houses | 24:29 | |
| in it. | 24:34 | |
| Well, and several other villages | 24:35 | |
| maybe two or three kilometers, | 24:38 | |
| maybe eight kilometers off. | 24:40 | |
| You have not a penny, not a dollar in your pocket, nothing. | 24:46 | |
| The state will not give you anything. | 24:50 | |
| The church will never give you anything. | 24:54 | |
| And you see in front of you, | 24:58 | |
| well, the remnants of a brick house with no roof, | 25:01 | |
| no windows, no doors. | 25:07 | |
| It was used as a store house to keep fertilizers. | 25:10 | |
| Do you realize what it is | 25:17 | |
| for the brick to be full of those fertilizers. | 25:19 | |
| The snow falling on them and the rain falling on them. | 25:24 | |
| Don't forget that at that time | 25:29 | |
| we were the first country in the world | 25:33 | |
| that the quantity of fertilizers was tremendous. | 25:38 | |
| We didn't know what to do with it, | 25:44 | |
| so we store it in churches. | 25:46 | |
| So nobody wanted to go with me inside. | 25:49 | |
| They said, rubber boots are very expensive today, Father. | 25:54 | |
| We'll better stand on the road. | 25:59 | |
| The fertilizers are very harmful for the boots. | 26:01 | |
| So I went there, spread a towel | 26:06 | |
| on the windowsill. | 26:10 | |
| Put my cross and | 26:12 | |
| the Bible there | 26:15 | |
| and sang | 26:17 | |
| the first hymn. | 26:19 | |
| Of course, | 26:21 | |
| your wonderful choir | 26:22 | |
| sings much better. | 26:27 | |
| I had never sung before, you know? | 26:29 | |
| Before I was ordained, but I had to sing. | 26:32 | |
| Then I took the cross and went round the church | 26:36 | |
| praising the Lord | 26:43 | |
| for the | 26:45 | |
| resurrection of the church. | 26:48 | |
| I must tell you that it was the time of our Easter. | 26:50 | |
| So, I could sing the Easter hymn. | 26:55 | |
| Nobody joined me. | 27:00 | |
| Then I found out that nobody knew even the Lord's Prayer. | 27:03 | |
| So I went round the church once, | 27:08 | |
| and the second time and a third. | 27:10 | |
| And I'm glad to tell you today | 27:16 | |
| that the church is resurrected. | 27:19 | |
| Well, I didn't receive the money from the Americans. | 27:24 | |
| There was a group of Norwegian Lutherans who came, | 27:27 | |
| worked with me in summer. | 27:33 | |
| And then gave me $10,000. | 27:36 | |
| And then came a Canadian Baptist, | 27:39 | |
| lived with me, didn't ask anything, didn't promise anything. | 27:44 | |
| And gave another $10,000. | 27:49 | |
| So with the money of the Norwegian Lutherans | 27:53 | |
| and the Canadian Baptist, has been resurrected, | 27:58 | |
| restored, that church. | 28:03 | |
| And when people ask me today if I'm, | 28:07 | |
| well... | 28:11 | |
| Ready to cooperate with other denominations, | 28:14 | |
| if I'm economically minded, I don't say yes or no. | 28:20 | |
| I just tell them that story, that's all. | 28:25 | |
| Nobody tried to convert | 28:28 | |
| my people, my congregation | 28:32 | |
| into this or that denomination. | 28:33 | |
| They gave, and that's all. | 28:37 | |
| What is to be a priest in Russia today? | 28:43 | |
| I am responsible for the church. | 28:47 | |
| I am responsible for the local store. | 28:50 | |
| I am responsible for a dozen other things. | 28:55 | |
| For example, during a service, | 29:01 | |
| well a month or so ago, an old woman fell. | 29:04 | |
| She suffered a heart attack or a stroke. | 29:09 | |
| So we tried to call the local ambulance, | 29:15 | |
| which is 20 miles from my village. | 29:20 | |
| They said, sorry, no gas; we cannot come. | 29:24 | |
| I tried to contact the ambulance in Kostroma. | 29:29 | |
| They said, sorry not our region, we cannot come. | 29:33 | |
| So the daughter of that woman rushed to the road | 29:37 | |
| and tried to hitchhike a car, nobody stopped. | 29:41 | |
| And the woman laid there in the church | 29:47 | |
| for an hour and a half. | 29:51 | |
| I think it is my duty | 29:56 | |
| to find a car, | 29:59 | |
| and to be a kind of nurse | 30:01 | |
| in my village. | 30:04 | |
| I can go on enumerating my duties | 30:06 | |
| because they are the needy, | 30:09 | |
| they are the old aged, the handicapped, lonely mothers. | 30:12 | |
| Who will help them today? | 30:17 | |
| Nobody will. | 30:21 | |
| The state | 30:23 | |
| cannot do it; we are too poor. | 30:26 | |
| Because for | 30:29 | |
| 75 years we were | 30:32 | |
| building that | 30:35 | |
| communist society, the brave new world. | 30:38 | |
| And we have built it. | 30:44 | |
| And that's where we are. | 30:47 | |
| Those of you who | 30:50 | |
| visited Russia, | 30:52 | |
| and who were not only in Moscow in expensive hotels. | 30:55 | |
| And who not only went to expensive restaurants | 31:01 | |
| where our people cannot afford to go. | 31:07 | |
| Those of you who went to just villages, | 31:10 | |
| you know what it is to survive in Russia today. | 31:14 | |
| Therefore when I | 31:21 | |
| pray, when I repeat the same words today, | 31:25 | |
| save your | 31:29 | |
| people, Lord. | 31:31 | |
| And bless those who are yours. | 31:35 | |
| Bless thy inheritance. | 31:39 | |
| I know that | 31:43 | |
| I am praying for my village. | 31:45 | |
| I am praying for my congregation. | 31:49 | |
| I am praying for my country. | 31:52 | |
| And I am praying | 31:55 | |
| for all Christians because | 31:59 | |
| I must repeat it? | 32:04 | |
| If one member suffers, | 32:05 | |
| all suffer. | 32:09 | |
| Amen. | 32:12 |